Reduced-calorie beverages and food products are very popular. Such products typically contain, singularly or in blends, non-nutritive sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame-K, saccharin, sucralose, neotame and cyclamate. While consumers do not have to worry about calories, non-nutritive sweeteners are known to impart a taste different from that of full-calorie counterparts. So-called “diet taste” is commonly described as slow onset but lingering sweetness accompanied with a bitter and/or metallic undesirable aftertaste and a watery mouthfeel. Due to the greatly reduced sugar solid content, reduced-calorie drinks also lack the body and/or thickness perception associated with full-calorie drinks. G. R. Shore, et al., “Taste and Mouthfeel in Low Calorie Soft Drinks”, Contribution of Low- and Non-Volatile Materials to the Flavor of Foods, W. Pickenhagen, ed., Allured Publishing Corp., pp. 119-123 (1996). The watery mouthfeel and/or metallic undesirable aftertaste can be particularly severe in diet and zero-calorie beverages.
Reduced-calorie, low-calorie and zero-calorie beverages and food products with tastes similar to those of full-calorie products are very desirable and have been sought after for quite some time. Currently, however, methods of improving taste have fallen short of achieving a taste similar to full-calorie products. Consequently, there is a need for reduced-calorie beverages and foods having a taste similar to full-calorie products.
In addition, further problems arise when attempting to achieve reduced-calorie or diet frozen carbonated beverages (FCBs), which are semi-frozen carbonated drinks dispensed from a FCB dispenser. Such beverages require bulk solutes to stabilize small ice crystals and to trap carbon dioxide for a good taste and a smooth texture. The most commonly employed bulk solute is sugar. However, sugar is caloric and is therefore not suitable for the formulation of zero- or low-calorie FCBs. Sugar alcohols, which are known to mimic the bulk properties of ordinary sugars and have fewer calories, also are less sweet and most have undesirable gastrointestinal effects when ingested at comparable levels to sugars. Thus, making diet FCBs has been very difficult due to the need for both bulk solutes and zero or low calories.